


A kiss or two or three

by dacapoalfin



Category: The Half of It (2020)
Genre: F/F, Feels, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:27:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24696799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dacapoalfin/pseuds/dacapoalfin
Summary: Actions have consequences, so what consequences does an impromptu, reckless kiss entail?
Relationships: Ellie Chu/Aster Flores
Comments: 10
Kudos: 295





	A kiss or two or three

**Author's Note:**

> I felt like Aster was deprived of feelings, so I tried to give her some :) Hope you guys like it!

It’s been an hour since Ellie’s ultimate act of rebellion against the confinement ofSquahamish’s religious and societal beliefs and she still can’t for the life of her recreate the train of thoughts that led her to believe that it was okay to kiss Aster Flores, still the Deacon’s daughter, still Trig’s fiance for all she knows, square on the mouth, in broad daylight, in the middle of the street. 

_“In a couple of years, I’m gonna be so_ _sure.”_

_ “See you in a couple of years.” _

See you in a couple of years? Really? That might just beat running after trains for the title of the most moronic attempt of romanticism there is. The adrenaline rush made sure that she paddled away the 20 minute bike ride in less than 10 and then she stopped in front of her house, panting like a maniac and she felt like the world had suddenly turned concerningly small and considerably bigger at the same time and it was all just adding up to increase the pressure of the air in her lungs so that she could physically feel the weight of her actions. She took the bike to the back of the house and proceeded to speed walk to her bedroom, tried to gently close the door but ended up slamming it and continued to pace around her bedroom, trying not to knock out anything (everything) that found itself in her way. She had to have been running a fever because her face felt impossibly hot, and her insides definitely felt out of place, and her palms were clammy and wet, and her head felt light, but also heavy and she was pretty sure her lips actually detached from her body the moment they touched Aster’s. It was all unfamiliar territory, and really, she should’ve been happy with the unfamiliar territory that college will inevitably be, but she had to go on and turn her life around a single day before she’d have to go on and do that same thing again. She sat on the bed and she wished she could bite that stupid smile off her lips because no, this is not a happy kind of day, this is a bittersweet, you’ll be leaving really soon kind of day and you really need to pack everything up before you do something as reckless and stupid as you just did.  _And since when are you the girl who throws caution to the wind?_

Since Aster Flores decided to reply to her letter, probably. Well, Paul’s letter. 

_ Should’ve known writing letters was stupid to begin with. _

_ And, oh god, Aster knows.  _

_ “For what it’s worth, it’s not like the thought never crossed my mind.” _

Well, the thought might as well go bungee jumping in her mind now, because it’s all out in the open. She knows exactly why Ellie kept the letters coming, and she knows what that statement in the church had meant and she knows that Ellie doesn’t wear chapstick, too. She knows everything, and that’s not even half of what Ellie could tell her, but never will, but it’s more than enough. And Aster’s lips are just as memorable as her name, and her everything, really, and Ellie might be a heathen but she thinks Aster’s name is the closest thing to a prayer that she’ll ever say out loud, because she allows herself to say her name out loud now. 

_ Aster. Aster. Aster. _

_ How is it that everything about her just screams divinity, and she’d always looked and felt colossally untouchable until my hands gripped her neck while I was kissing her, and how can it be that Aster Flores is not, in fact, a heavenly angel, but a mere gravitational force that can easily destroy everything it pulls in?  _

_ “Gravity is matter’s response to loneliness.” _

She makes a mental note to add “Aster didn’t push me away when I kissed her” to her pending list of small victories. Her hands had felt gently warm on her shoulder, and then her upper arm, and then her elbow, and it may have only been for a couple of seconds, but her lips had firmly wrapped around her own, like if they pushed closer, they could fit like puzzle pieces and find their place in the world. Aster was still a gift from the gods, whoever they may be, and Ellie wanted to be selfish for a moment and keep that gift for herself, but then she thought about how much meaning to how many lives Aster had the potential to bring and she realized that it would be pointless to keep her light trapped, focused on someone who’d just discovered their own ability to glow. Aster was growing, slowly morphing into the strong, independent woman she always wished she could be, she was...

_ DiegaRivero: Hey. _

_ DiegaRivero: Are you home? _

Whoomp .  The sound of every eloquent thought, flying out the window and landing face down on the tracks, waiting for the next train to put it out of its misery of existing. Ellie feels like her phone is probably burning harder than the sun right now, because her fingers feel like they’re on fire while she’s sliding them over the notification.

_ SmithCorona: Yeah _

_ DiegaRivero: Can I come in? I’m outside. _

...here. Aster is here. Ellie feels like this must be the inferno that Dante was talking about, the one you have to get through to get to the gates of heaven, the one everyone’s been dying to witness (pun intended). Yeah, this must be the inferno because no other place could feel like the Earth is opening up and swallowing everything that once stood up straight and Ellie feels like she’s spinning in the vortex that will eventually lead to her doom because Aster is here and that means that she will have to face the consequences to her actions, which, who would ever want to do? She’s frozen, but she starts moving on autopilot and she runs down the stairs to the front door. She opens it and... her heart finally catches up to everything that’s going on and makes its presence known with a short, but powerful extrasystole. Aster looks at her with an unreadable, somewhat confused gaze, and her eyes slightly widen at first, but then her eyelids contract and it seems almost... smug? 

“What are you doing here?”

“Can we go inside?”

Ellie wordlessly steps behind the door and opens it up a little wider, to let Aster in. Because of course she’ll always let Aster in. They make their way to her bedroom, and Ellie’s not sure what to do so she just leans on the desk and waits. Aster looks around for a moment, like she’s trying to take it all in, and then she focuses her eyes on Ellie’s guitar case instead of Ellie and she starts speaking.

“I um... liked it. The kiss. I wish I could say I didn’t, but I did. And so, I came to see. If I’d like the second one just as much.”

“The second... oh.”

“Yeah. Bold strokes, right?”

She says it, but she doesn’t move. And she briefly looks at Ellie a couple of times, enough to only acknowledge her existence, to acknowledge the fact that she is, in fact, speaking to her. Aster wants to kiss her. Again. And Ellie went over at least a thousand and one scenario similar to this one in her head when she was trying to fall asleep almost every night for the past two or three years, but now she feels like all this must be a joke because those scenarios were always meant to stay in her head. She looks at Aster, the same way she’s looked at her for as long as she can remember, and she’s trying to understand the fact that it’s okay to get closer to her now, so she does. She pushes herself from the desk and slowly, tentatively makes her way over until she’s standing right in front of Aster, arms peacefully down by her torso, and stops. Aster finally fixates her eyes on her, and smiles slightly, and then her gaze drops lightly to settle on her lips, and her mouth opens slightly and... oh.

_ The look . _

Ellie realizes that Aster might be getting bolder by the second, and she’s proud of her for that, but she also realizes that although she might really want to be, she’s not ready to be the one to initiate physical contact between them, so Ellie makes another step, she reaches out her arms and cradles Aster’s face, this time gently and she looks straight in her eyes, because she can do that now. She leans in and - 

It’s everything the first kiss wasn’t. It’s slow, it’s gentle, but still firm, it’s warm, it’s caring and it might be less intense, but the intensity of the feelings it provokes is definitely the same, if not stronger. And then Aster’s hands are on her waist, under her open zip hoodie and she’s trying to remember the imprint that they leave because she wants to carry it on her skin through all the hardships of her life yet to come. They move their lips around, and their heads, too, a little bit and then Aster’s tongue makes it’s way out of the cave carved by her perfectly aligned teeth and she barely licks the nonexistent space between Ellie’s lips, but it’s enough to make Ellie want to dive off a cliff just to make sure she’s still alive. Then she whispers - 

“Open your mouth”

on top of her lips and Ellie will always comply, so she does and for a millisecond Ellie is actually glad that Trig had been in her place before because Aster’s tongue is skilled, and it’s communicating with her own in the most intimate of ways, teaching it to follow the lead and she finally understands the obnoxious lovestruck teenagers that keep making out on every corner because yes, this is infinitely better than the barely repressed longing she’d been perfecting during her high school years. Aster’s hands move around a little bit, and they pull her closer, so their hearts are basically beating wildly against each other and there’s barely a visually imperceptible line between her layers of clothing and Aster’s red dress - THE red dress and Ellie can now honestly understand why people don’t want to go through life alone. Her hands gently glide down Aster’s jaw, and she slides them in the roots of her hair, gently roaming around and massaging the bottom of her scalp and Aster lets out a sound that can only be described as a thousand chords played on a harp’s strings coming together to create a perfect harmony. They kiss, and they kiss, and they kiss some more until their lungs remind them that they’ll need oxygen to keep kissing, so they gently push their foreheads together, eyes closed, still holding each other as tight as they know how and they release a breath.

_ “ _ I do.”

“You do?”

“I liked the second one, too. And the third one. And every other one, after that.”

“Yeah. I liked them, too.”

_ “ _ Ellie, I never knew I could feel like this before. And that’s all I ever wanted - to feel. To feel something, anything, to be someone. You make me feel like I am someone.”

“You’re everything.”

“I wish I could agree with that. I wish I could be everything to myself.”

“You will be.”

“See, that’s what I mean. You say things like you believe in them.”

“I guess I do believe in something, then.”

It’s quiet for a little bit, Aster’s arms now crossed and interlocked behind Ellie’s back, Ellie’s palms resting on her shoulder blades, and Ellie rests her head in the crook between Aster’s neck and clavicle, placing a faint kiss on the smooth skin because yes, she can do that now and they stay like that for a while, trying to say everything that they’re feeling with their bodies, instead of their words and it looks like it’s the beginning of something beautiful, but it’s not.

“You’re leaving tomorrow.”

“I am.”

“We won’t be seventeen the next time we see each other.”

“I don’t even feel seventeen right now.”

“I don’t wanna see you in a couple of years.”

“Oh.”

And Ellie’s about to pull away, but Aster sees it coming, so she squeezes harder.

“No, I mean, I want to see you before. I don’t know who I am, or who I’m gonna be, or how long it will take me to figure it out. I don’t know where I’ll end up going, or if I’ll meet somebody who’ll make me feel the way you do, but I don’t want to go through life remembering what you made me feel like. I want to have that, through letters, through texts, through any means of communication you find practical. I want to wake up every day feeling grateful that I have you in my life.” 

Ellie pauses, tries to organize her thoughtsand starts speaking -

“Dear Aster, here goes the first and hopefully only oral letter you’ll ever have the pleasure of hearing.”

Aster laughs lightly and her eyes tear up because she’s pretty sure she knows how much this moment is gonna mean to her some day.

“You’re always gonna be the girl that showed me that the Universe is bigger than humanly fathomable, and I’d be a fool to let you explore it without me. Signed, Ellie Chu.”

Aster kisses her cheek and pulls her hand to the side to interlock their fingers, while she settles the other one on Ellie’s neck.

“You’re something else, Ellie Chu.”

“The love of your life, you mean.”

Ellie smiles playfully (because she does that, now) and Aster laughs and shakes her head a little, as to clear it up enough to be aware of the weight of her words and says - 

“We’ll see about that.”


End file.
